With the busy holiday shopping season still in full swing, Apple’s AirPods will be extremely hard, if not impossible, to come by. Though it seemed that Apple had finally managed to address and fix early AirPod production issues, it now appears that AirPod orders placed today won’t ship until January of 2018. Currently, many Apple retail stores are listing January 5 as the first available pickup date for new orders.
Notably, AirPods seem to be in short supply across the board, as retailers like Best Buy and Target are completely out of stock until the new year as well. Meanwhile, carriers like Sprint and Verizon have also exhausted their supply. As it stands now, if you’re really keen on buying a pair of AirPods before the new year, it seems like your best bet is to go the AT&T route, though you’ll have to pony up an extra $14.95 for 2-day shipping.
In short, AirPods are now subject to a nearly 3 week delay, which is quite jarring given that Apple’s wireless earbuds first hit store shelves about a year ago. All told, it remains unclear what lies at the heart of Apple’s supply issues with respect to AirPods. What makes the situation somewhat bizarre is that Apple seemingly worked past production issues earlier this year. To this point, AirPods were one of the top-selling items on Cyber Monday this year.
Of course, AirPods isn’t the only Apple product that won’t be available for purchase this holiday season. Apple’s HomePod, which was initially scheduled for release this month, recently saw its launch date pushed back to early 2018.
